If we’re talking about comings and goings, we have to start with the earthly departure of Paul Greenberg, the Pine Bluff Commercial and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial writer and one of only a handful of Arkansans to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism.
Paul, who was my co-worker for five years at the Democrat-Gazette, died on April 6 and was remembered as a sophisticated writer and thinker.
His Pine Bluff editorials on race relations won the Pulitzer in 1969, the same year Norman Mailer won the general nonfiction prize for “The Armies of the Night.” Greenberg was a Pulitzer finalist two other times, and hung his medal on the wall of his office in the Democrat-Gazette’s third-floor newsroom.
The Shreveport native was a powerful public voice in Arkansas for nearly 60 years, a voice he flung nationwide via his syndicated columns. I once overheard a man on a Times Square street corner call him a mensch. (Mensch, said “The Joys of Yiddish” author Leo Rosten, is a term for “someone to admire.”) In those days Greenberg’s column appeared in one of the New York tabloids.
In his last column for the Democrat-Gazette, in 2018, Greenberg mused on mortality, writing that the “angel of death can be more than welcome when he brings welcome relief, like sleep at the end of a busy day.” Sleep well, sir.
Another Democrat-Gazette veteran, John Moritz, announced last week that he’s going home, though not eternally.
Moritz, who distinguished himself with solid work over five years as the paper’s statehouse reporter, announced on social media April 19 that he’s leaving Little Rock for his old stomping grounds in Connecticut. He’ll be covering local government and politics for the Hearst Connecticut Media Group. “I’m thrilled to be returning to my home state to work for the papers I grew up reading,” he posted.
Doug Thompson, the veteran political reporter and enterprise editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, niftily summed up the reaction of colleagues: “1. Congratulations. 2. Dammit.”
And speaking of northwest Arkansas, the political news site Axios has hired two familiar media names to cover the region and put out a newsletter: former Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette health and city beat reporter Alex Golden and former Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Editor Worth Sparkman.
Axios, a Beltway mainstay launched in 2017 by former Politico heavyweights Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz, has been branching out with newsletters nationwide. The company said Golden and Sparkman will “distill everything happening in Benton and Washington counties into one smart, concise morning newsletter,” which will make its debut on May 24.
Most recently, Sparkman spent nearly 10 years in public relations for Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale.
A familiar face on Fort Smith and northwest Arkansas TV news is also changing directions after 20 years at KFSM-TV, Channel 5. Chief Meteorologist Garrett Lewis is leaving television work, he announced at the end of March.
Noting that the trials of 2020 had led to some self-reflection, Lewis informed station managers that he had a “desire to transition out” of TV, and they let him out of his contract. “Like the weather, life is full of seasons,” Lewis said on the air March 30. Since July is his 20th anniversary at 5News, his last day will be July 30. He promised more news about his plans as that date nears.”
Among all these goings, we can celebrate a few arrivals.
Memphis native Jeané Franseen has joined KATV, Channel 7, in Little Rock as weekend anchor; she’ll do reporting during the week. A Middle Tennessee State University graduate, she previously worked in Shreveport and was a morning reporter in Memphis for WATN, Local 24.
At KTHV, Channel 11, in Little Rock, longtime reporter Rolly Hoyt has joined the evening anchor team. Husband to Jennifer Hoyt, director of racing at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Rolly is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston.
Ian Russell and Frederick Price have hired on this year as KTHV multimedia reporters. Russell is a University of Missouri graduate who cut his teeth at KOMU, the NBC affiliate in Columbia. Price is graduating this spring from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
KARK in Little Rock has promoted Hunter Hoagland to the weekend anchor team, News Director Ernie Paulson said.